


To Wish Impossible Things

by abreathofsnowandashes



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fraser angst, Gen, family ties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-25 10:13:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abreathofsnowandashes/pseuds/abreathofsnowandashes
Summary: Newly returned to the Ridge from Riverun and tensions are fraught between the Frasers and MacKenzies. Father and daughter remain estranged and so old regrets and new are on Jamie and Claire’s minds as they share a conversation deep in the night about what could have been and what might still yet be.Take place immediately after Season 4.





	To Wish Impossible Things

**Author's Note:**

> So it goes you're supposed to be writing a whole different story and another one creeps up and kidnaps you. There may be another iteration of this, I'm not sure yet. At its heart is a moment that I feel we need but the show doesn't necessarily give space over to. I can understand the constraints of telling this kind of story in the tv format but still, I hope I am proven wrong come February.

I awoke at once when Jamie got out of bed. I threw my arm out blindly as though to catch the tails of his nightshirt and pull him back under the covers with me. When my palm found nothing but air I exhaled a huff of annoyance and sat up to look around the cabin, my eyes squinting to see what had roused him from sleep. It took my vision a moment to adjust to the darkness but once it did I found him, stood at the far end of the room where Brianna lay sleeping on a pallet by the side of the fire and baby Jeremiah lay in his cradle. Jamie was hunched over, his hands on his knees, peering in at the baby as a small, tender smile inched across his face. I felt my own lips turn up at the sight and pulled the covers up and moved to my side to watch them more closely.

"What’s the matter, my wee lad? Are ye troubled?” Jamie inquired.

Jemmy answered with a sorrowful whimper that seemed to have him on the edge of tears.

“Ach, that’s a terrible business indeed,” Jamie said, commiserating with the little boy. Jemmy cooed softly, somewhat appeased by the attention, and then proceeded to furiously wave his chubby fists in the air. Jamie laughed, his smile now near to splitting his face. He leaned into the cradle, his knees creaking as he bent down, and lifted Jemmy up into his arms. “There ye are, _a_ _bhalaich_, up ye come to yer auld Granda.”

Once he was upright again, Jamie turned with Jemmy, content in the crook of his elbow and sat with the baby in the armchair beside the fire. He whispered companionably to the boy in a mix of English and _Gàidhlig_. Each gentle word spoken by grandfather to grandson infused my heart with a warmth that I felt from the tops of my ears to the tips of my toes.

I had felt unaccountably tender and protective towards Jamie since we had returned from the Mohawk village without Roger and Young Ian. Roger had eventually followed after but I knew Jamie viewed it as a failure. Of him as a man and as a father. He had promised his daughter that he would return with her young historian or not at all and he had been forced to present himself to her with nothing but his broken word as offering. To Jamie’s estimation this was unforgivable, though to mine, he'd done rather well all things considered. While he neither returned with Roger nor Young Ian, they were alive. To me the choices these men made of their own accord were not Jamie's burden to carry. Yet, true martyr that he was, carry them he did.

And then there was Brianna.

I suspected there was a significant part of Jamie that believed that if he had returned Roger as promised, Bree would have forgiven him and they would have begun to have the father-daughter relationship I know he dreamed of for them. I dreamed it for them, too. But Brianna, Fraser through and through and as stubborn as rocks, once burned was not inclined to trust so easily the second time and seemed determined to keep Jamie out. She interacted with him as minimally as possible while still claiming civility but I’d wager even little Jemmy could tell she lacked conviction.

It troubled me more than I could say to see this distance between the two people I loved best in the world, though especially for Jamie. It was achingly painful to see him watch Bree and the baby from a distance during the day, to look on at what he wanted most in the world but be unable to touch it, like a starving man standing before a feast to which he had not been invited. Instead he was reduced to late night moments where he stole precious time Jemmy while Brianna slept.

It all pressed at an old bruise of mine that had never quite healed. I'd once thought, early in our marriage, that I was barren and that in marrying Jamie I had denied him the chance of fatherhood. He wanted desperately to be a father, to raise his family in love and security, just as his own father had done with he and his siblings. There had been moments of hope when we thought we might just get that chance after all but each time life or history had snatched it cruelly from our grasp. 

If I could admit it to myself, I knew that I had secretly hoped that Fraser's Ridge could finally make good on that dream. But once again life and history had reared its ugly head and it felt as though the dream was sliding through our fingers once more. 

I was pulled out of my fretful thoughts by Jamie who had gotten up to place the baby back in his cradle and then crept, as much as a 6ft 3 highlander could, across the room and slid back into bed with me.

"Christ, Sassenach, your as cold as a ice, come here to me," he said, as he pulled my back flush against his chest so that my arse was tucked snuggly into the curve of his hips while he burrowed his face into my neck contentedly.

I laid my arm atop his as it wrapped around me and linked our fingers together. I sighed softly and felt the tension slowly melt out of my body as it always did when held me so.

“Did he go off to sleep all right?” I asked quietly after a moment.

“Aye,” Jamie said. I could hear the smile in his voice and turned in his arms to look at him with a gentle smile of my own. 

“You are a very good grandfather, you know, James Fraser. Jemmy is very lucky little boy.”

Embarrassed, Jamie ducked his head bashfully and I could see the pink blush that had spread to the tips of his ears.

After a moment he reached out and picked up my hand and traced the pad of his index finger along the ridge of my knuckles, settling on my wedding ring. 

“He’s such a wee little thing,” he said softly. The expression of absolute love in his face as he spoke about his grandson took my breath away. There were days when I was certain I could not love Jamie Fraser any more than I already did but then a moment like this would force me to reassess the depths of the human heart. I was surprised when I felt tears press at the back of my throat. 

“Do ye ever regret it, Claire?” he asked suddenly. “Going back through the Stones, at the Rising?”

The question took me aback and seeing my distress he rushed to continue.

“It’s only that having the lad here and seeing all the wee things he does every day, well… I cannae help but feel an ache, aye? For what could ha’ been… for us all.”

I did not miss the way his gaze turned longingly towards Brianna as he spoke.

I considered him quietly before answering honestly, “Never and always.”

A sad smile passed his lips and he nodded for me to carry on.

“It was true what I said to you when I first returned. It is likely that I would not have survived the birth if I had stayed here,” I said.

“But the loss of you and the life we would have had together… I could never forget it. I’d imagine you and Brianna together, see you teach her how to ride a horse or to speak _Gàidhlig_...” my voice softly trailed off as the tears that had been building silently slid across my cheek.

“Each day I’d find myself desperate to tell you something she said or did. To share her with you. Even after twenty years, that ache never went away.”

“I’m sorry I couldna give ye that, Sassenach,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

“I fear it is I that has denied you,” I said quietly.

He looked at me perplexed and I moved a little closer to him before speaking again, needing his strength to carry on. 

“Brianna and I have not always been as close as we are now. I remember all too well what it was like to live on the outside of the world she and Frank shared together. They had, for so long, seemed to belong to each other and there never quite seemed to be room for me to belong, too.” 

I paused here and took a breath before carrying on. “I meant what I said in the tent on the way to rescue Roger; I don’t think I can keep that old promise to you any longer, there are secrets that I am duty bound to keep as her mother. But I feel I have allowed you to be set outside Brianna and my world and I am so sorry, Jamie, because I never wanted that. I…”

“Hush, Sassenach,” he said gently, halting my pleading words and stroked my cheek to calm me. “It’s all right, _a_ _ghràidh_, a lass needs her Mam. Ye no did wrong.”

Jamie squeezed my hand and gave me a wan smile. He dropped his gaze and refused to meet my eyes again. My brow furrowed and I reached out and slowly raised his chin so he looked at me.

“What is it?” I asked quietly. 

"Do ye think... " his mouth could not seem to form the words and he shook his head slightly as if trying to shake them loose.

"Do I think what?" I said, urging him to continue. 

He gathered himself and finally asked, "Do ye think she would ha' liked me if I had raised her?"

I felt the question like a solid blow through my chest, knocking the breath straight out of me.

"Jamie, she _loves_…" I rushed to say but Jamie cut me off with a wave of his hand.

"No Sassenach, tis as plain as day that she doesnae. I cannae say I blame her, for I havenae given her much reason to but still…."

His eyes misted over and I imagined he saw visions of what could have been swimming in his gaze. He looked at me, the tears visible on his cheeks. “Still,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with loss and longing, “she’s my wee bairn, aye?”

I felt as though my chest had been cracked wide open and my heart torn out. With a hitch in my voice I whispered, “Yes, she _is_.” I would have done anything in that moment to take his pain from him.

"I often wondered over the years,” he said a little time later, when the moment had passed and the rough emotions had eased from his voice, “after the war, in Ardsmuir, and Hellwater, and even after that….if… if living through those times was my penance? For my sins, ken."

"Your sins?" I asked, warily.

“Well, ye might remember I had quite a few that I planned to atone for in purgatory, while I waited for ye, Sassenach,” he reminded me.

“You did,” I said, “two hundred years worth.”

“Aye, and true enough, twenty years on earth without ye felt as long and as heavy a burden as two hundred in purgatory, but well, these last few months, I’ve wondered if I might have time yet to serve,” he said, turning his neck slightly and glancing to where Bree lay.

“Surely, all you have already suffered and the good you have done must weigh against any ill deeds you have committed?” I asked, pulling his gaze back to me.

“I dinnae ken, Sassenach, there are some things that cannae be wiped clean.”

I was silent for a moment for I knew this was true but still, I pushed him and asked, “Like what?”

"Taking another man's wife, for one."

_Bloody_ _Scot_.

I sighed and rolled my eyes in annoyance and pushed myself up to look down at him.

"You didn't _take_ me, as you bloody well know,” I said with more than a little asperity. “If I didn't want you, James Fraser, you wouldn’t have had me." 

"Aye, well" he said, rubbing the side of his nose with his index finger, momentarily amused by my outburst and doing his best to look sufficiently chastised. "Though there’s also the matter of murder, theft, treason, fraud…." he continued.

"Yes, well, I think you'll find I could just as easily be found guilty of all of those things, too,” I said as I lay my head back down upon his chest, having heard quite enough.

He considered that for a moment.

"So ye could, Sassenach," he conceded quietly. He reached out to stroke my hair and asked, "Ye’ve suffered your own sentence, have ye no?"

“I have,” I said softly as I turned my head to look up at him, “but don’t you see, I was serving it with you all along.”

“Claire,” he said, almost pleading, though for what I did not know.

“And if there is time to serve yet, then I shall bear that with you, too.” I squeezed him a little tighter to emphasize my point.

He leaned forward and kissed me, softly at first and then more deeply. His lips parted and he pressed questioningly against my mouth as he sought entrance. I opened my lips and let him in, suddenly desperate to convey my feelings to him in a way words could not. 

Afterwards Jamie pulled back just enough to permit himself to lay his brow against mine. We stayed like that for a long moment. His breath gently blowing the curls off my forehead while I ran my fingers through the stubble on his jaw. 

“Jamie?” I asked tentatively.

“Hmm,” he answered, nearly asleep.

“You believe that _I_ love you though, don’t you?” I asked, unable to mask the worry that had crept into my thoughts.

He laughed softly.

“That, Sassenach, I am _certain_ of. ‘Tis how I know redemption can be found. For if you love me, then there is hope for us all. Even for sinners such as me.”

He kissed the crown of my head, pulled me closer to him and at last, we spoke no more.


End file.
